TORONTO, ON - I love the wiki concept. Wikis hold a lot of power and promise. A wiki however cannot substitute for an entire intranet.

My colleague Shel Holtz takes issue, and with good reason, with SocialText CEO Ross Mayfield (makers of the leading wiki software) who has suggested that all intranets could become wikis (see The future of intranets). Mayfield makes his comments on the Blogspotting show of Stephen Baker, a BusinessWeek reporter and blogger (seeRossMayfield interview).

Look lets not confuse a social communications tool with a business ecosystem. I’m sure I need not redefine what an intranet. A wiki can be used for many things including creating policies, dialogues, knowledge networks, etc. But a wiki is a tool, and only a tool. For professional communicators and business managers, it is but only one tool that should be considered in a larger mix of options.

“Whatever shape they take, intranets are, at their core, the Internet captured behind the firewall,” writes Holtz. “That definition embraced the suite of TCP/IP protocols... also allows the intranet to perform all manner of functions, from communication to collaboration, from streamlined online work processes to the archiving of static information in a hierarchical, navigable format. No single platform can contain all of the purposes a class-A intranet can fulfill.”

Bang on. What else does an intranet or portal offer that a wiki can never?

• Employee directory
• Self-service applications such as HR tools
• Personalized portals
• Dynamically generated content
• Advanced security, controls and workflow

No, I love wikis, but this social communictions phenom will never substitue a complete intranet or portal. Nor should it.

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